Removing particles from glass with ultraviolet laser cleaning

Summary form only given. We report results that show that particles as small as 0.1 /spl mu/m diameter can be successfully removed from the glass surface. In order to obtain quantitative data from such images, we measured the difference in surface particle density before and after irradiation for a range of fluences and particle sizes. These results reveal that: (1) laser cleaning occurs after a definite threshold is reached (2) after the cleaning threshold is reached, the difference in surface particle density before and after irradiation follows a definite trend with respect to fluence, and (3) the area cleaned depends on the beam area above the threshold fluence for cleaning.